Uwe Boll, The Director they tried to stop! Pt 1

I was looking at a list of the most hated movies, not just critic ratings but audience as well, and in the top 15 were 4 Uwe Boll films, pretty good going really!

Uwe Boll was born in Wermelskirchen, Germany, at the age of 10 he became interested in film making when he saw Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty. 

He studied literature and economics at the University of Siegen, he also studied film directing in Munich and Vienna and earned a doctorate in literature from the University of Cologne.

In the late 80's he began his career as a film critic at a local radio station, by the early 90's he had moved into professional film making in Germany co-writing/directing/producing with Frank Lustig, they made a couple of films together before parting ways, 'German Fried Movie' and 'Barschel - Mord in Genf'

He went on to produce 2 more films in Germany, which he also wrote and directed, 'Amklauf' and 'Das erste Semester'

Around 2000 Boll moved to Canada and started to produce English language films (I think the Germans had had enough of him!).

His first was 'Sanctimony' followed by 'Blackwoods' and 'Heart of America', all available on Prime, none very well regarded.

In 2003 Boll moved into the territory that he was going to become famous (infamous) for, video game adaptations, and we start with 'House of the Dead', although critically panned it actually made money, which is amazing as it is awful! It does have some redeeming qualities, the effects aren't bad, there is one scene where a special round is fired and the bullet splits into several smaller bullets, that's well done. David Palffy as Castillo doesn't do too bad a job as the baddie either, the rest of the cast is totally forgettable, you could have swapped them with other actors whilst filming and nobody would have noticed!

In 2005 Boll released 2 more video game based films, 'Alone in the Dark' (holds a 1% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and 'Bloodrayne', both these films are award winning, both receiving Stinkers Bad Movie Award for Worst Sense of Direction"! 

I know it's the Hindi dubbed version but you're not missing a lot!

'Bloodrayne' has the likes of Ben Kingsley, Michele Rodriguez, Billy Zane, Udo Kier and Meatloaf in it just to prove actors will do anything for money, a theme that carries on in most of Bolls films! 

It also has Michael Pare in it, he is one of Bolls reoccring actors and appears in quite a few of his films, no idea why, can only assume he needed the money!

In 2006 Boll was so fed up with the constant criticism that he challenged 5 of his worst critics to a 10 round boxing match, they all excepted, and Boll beat them all!

Check out the documentary above titled 'Raging Boll'

In 2007 Boll released 4 movies, none of which were commercial or critical successes, but they were award winning, of sorts.

'In the Name of the King' starred Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, Ron Perlman and Ray Liotta and won the Golden Raspberry for Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor and Worst supporting Actress, it was nominated for Worst Picture but was narrowly beaten by the Mike Myers stinker The Love Guru! Just to warn you there is actually a Directors cut of In the Name of the King and it's another 35mins longer, I never intend to watch it, 2 hours was enough for me!

'Postal' actually had J.K. Simmons in it and received the Golden Raspberry for Worst Director.

'Bloodrayne 2: Deliverence' is another of his films that has managed a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.

'Seed' though not a good film it did actually win an award for it's special effects at the New York City Horror Film Festival.

In 2008 a petition called 'Stop Dr. Uwe Boll' was started after it was claimed that he would give up directing if a petion could raise 1,000,000 signatures, it only received 353,835, Boll countered this petion with one of his own, 'Long Live Uwe Boll' which he claimed WOULD get a million signatures, it got 7,631!